Scientists create the 5th form of matter for 6 minutes

29-Jan-2019

From Big Think

For six minutes, 150 miles above Kiruna, Sweden on January 23, 2017 floated the coldest known spot in the universe. As far as we know, the coldest anything in nature can be is absolute zero on the Kelvin scale, which is –459.67°F and –273.15°C. This postage-stamp-sized atom chip packed tight with thousands of rubidium-87 atoms was just a few billionths of a degree warmer than that. The atom chip was up there in low orbit to help a team of scientist study up-close some of the oddest, least-understood stuff there is: Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). The team of German scientists was led by Dennis Becker of QUEST-Leibniz Research School, Leibniz University Hannover, Hanover, Germany.